Quote:
Originally Posted by speede5
Alive but still blowing his life up. Does a safe supply help get people in to rehab and stop using? Or does it just buy us time to keep living the nightmare til they finally hit rock bottom and change.
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It's important to note that the notion that an addict must hit "rock bottom" to change may be harmful to the addict, and even to their chances of recovery. This is an idea that has been popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous, which is more of a religious cult than a scientific organization.
First, the "rock bottom" notion deters early interventions, which can be beneficial. The best time to help an addict recover is "now", not after a vaguely-defined amount of suffering.
Second, it deters the addict themself from seeking recovery. In telling them their recovery is doomed to fail unless they've reach some vaguely-defined amount of suffering, you're discouraging them from taking actions.
Third, it may fundamentally misunderstand what addiction is. There is emerging evidence that addiction is often a response to trauma. In one experiment, two groups of rats were given equal access to drugs, but different environments. The rats in the "rat paradise" environment left the drugs alone, while the rats who lacked alternative stimulation became drug users. Whilst there are dangers in extrapolating from rats to humans, and you don't want to directly enable a drug user, this suggests that what drug users need is an alternative means to address their underlying trauma, rather than more trauma piled on top. That actually risks pushing them further into addiction, and possibly to an overdose.
If your views on addiction have been shaped by AA, I encourage you to seek out other, more scientific information. Looking into SMART Recovery might be a good place to start.